The Jewish way of life is filled with wonder, beauty and love. So many times people become so involved in the mechanics of the “religion” we call Judaism that they lose sight of the warmth, excitement and enjoyment of life. To be Jewish you must commit yourself completely as it says in the Torah and we say everyday in the Shema, “with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might.”
To be Jewish is not to blindly follow a “religion” it is to live and experience life. To see and feel the world around us as we go about our daily lives. Being Jewish is a lifestyle that enables us to see the world in a holy context. The most mundane of tasks becomes part of our service. Everything can be raised to a higher level. As we go about our daily lives we unravel mysteries that can only be seen through faith and belief.
Many search for meaning in their faith, and expect an epiphany or great signs to “show them the way.” They become so intent on the search they don’t see, feel, hear or experience the many things in their everyday life that speak of great faith. Love is a powerful element in faith. Love of G-d, love of family, love of fellow man, love of all creatures and the very creation surround us everywhere. We just need to seize the opportunity.
A Tale of True Love :
The Son of a Sage and a Princess
The wife of a rabbi was barren. One night in a dream the rabbi saw an angel who told him that his wife would bear him a son. And so it came to pass. But on the day following the birth of his son, the rabbi had to go on a long journey. Before he left the rabbi commanded his wife to teach the child, whose name would be Shlomo, to read and write. And, indeed, the woman did as her husband had bidden her, and the boy learned much, and when he was fifteen ‘years old he was more learned than his father who was a great sage.
One day the lad climbed onto the roof of their house, and suddenly an eagle flew over the roof and snatched the boy. The eagle took the boy in its flight to a city in which not one Jewish person lived. And the eagle put the boy down in the king’s garden. When the boy awoke he found himself in a strange garden. The servants of the palace saw him and they wanted to know how he had come there.
“Who are you?” they asked him.
“I am the son of a rabbi,” he told them.
“I have expelled all the Jewish people from my country,” the king said to him. “But I will let you stay with me, for it is holy One, blessed be he who has brought you here.”
“But I cannot live here without other Jewish people,” the boy said.
“For your sake I will permit all the Jewish people to return,” the king said to him. “Let them live here together with you.
And the king kept his promise and allowed a number of Jewish families to return to the city. They built themselves a synagogue, and the lad sat in it from morning till night, studying the torah.
Now this king had an only daughter and, as the boy’s room was just beneath that of the princess, she would listen to his voice as he studied night after night. The princess did not know anything about Jewish people and their ways, and she used to ask herself, “Why does this young man read without a pause, day and night?”
One day she could no longer restrain herself. It was after midnight when she rose and went to a place facing the boy’s room. At first she tried to speak to him, but he did not even answer her, for he thought that it was a spirit that was speaking to him. He began to utter the Holy Name until the princess left the threshold of his room and went up to the dome of the roof. There she found one of the servants and she told him about the boy who did not wish to speak to her. “Who is this young man who does not even wish to speak to me?” she complained.
The servant went down to the boy’s room to speak to him of the girl who had stood on the threshold of his room. The Jewish boy asked her pardon saying that he had thought the young girl was a spirit. “Had I known she was a princess I would gladly have replied to her.”
So the princess returned to the boy’s room and said to him: “I wish to learn the things that you are studying. And also I would like to know why you study so much.”
The boy replied: “The Jewish people engage in the study of the torah so that we may be found worthy of the resurrection of the dead and of the world to come.”
“If that is the case, then I too wish to study and to observe the laws of your religion,” the princess said. And so every night the princess used to study until she began to eat only kosher food and then she became converted. She proposed to the boy that he take her for his wife, and he made only one condition, that she observe the commandments of the Jewish religion.
To this the princess agreed. The couple set the day of their marriage and the girl took a Hebrew name, Miriam.
One day, when the young man was on the roof of the palace, the same eagle that had snatched him was seen in the skies. Once again it seized the boy and restored him to his mother. The boy opened his eyes and, behold, he was in his mother’s house, but Miriam, the princess, was no longer at his side.
Some days passed and the lad fell ill because of his great love for Miriam, and she, too, fell ill because of her love for him. From day to day the state of the boy steadily became worse. He became very thin and it was soon clear that he would not live long. One day his father asked him, “My son, what has over-taken you?”
At first the boy refused to tell his father all that had befallen him, but finally he told him about the princess who had become Jewish. He was about to marry her when the eagle had come and borne him away.
The father promised his son that he would do all he could to find the princess and bring her to him. Leaving his son on his sickbed he took ship and set forth on that distant journey to find Miriam.
The king, Miriam’s father, sent messengers throughout his kingdom, commanding them, “You must find a doctor who can cure my daughter.”
When the boy’s father heard of the sick princess he understood that it was she who was the Miriam he was seeking, and he resolved to present himself as a physician. And so he asked the king to allow him to remain with his daughter. He prepared a broth of doves which he gave to the princess and, as she was drinking the broth, he whispered in her ear, “Miriam!” The girl opened her eyes wide and the father continued in a whisper: “I am the father of Shlomo!” And the princess soon began to recover and everyone thought that the cure had been effected thanks to the doves’ broth.
When the princess was well enough to walk, the father and his daughter-in-law made plans to leave secretly so that they could return to Shlomo.
The father went to the king and said: “Sire, you know that your daughter is an invalid and that if she sickens again she will die. Allow her, therefore, to travel together with me for a few days and I will cure her entirely.”
The king agreed and gave him much money and his royal ship.
The father took the princess and both set out for the town in which Shlomo lived. But the same moment that the princess and the father crossed the threshold of the house the boy died.
The princess wept bitterly and complained to the father: “You Jews believe in the resurrection of the dead. I too believe in it and for that reason I gave up my faith and took on the Jewish religion. But if my beloved Shlomo does not rise from the dead, your religion is worth nothing at all.”
Then the father whispered, “Blessed be He and blessed be His Name!” And straight away Shlomo’s spirit returned to him. “Rise, Shlomo!” the father said to him. “Miriam has come!”
The wedding was celebrated by the wise father. Miriam remained strong and true in her faith and never returned to her father’s home.
May all your tales end with Shalom (peace)
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Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation. (Joel 1:3)
